Design
The MD-2 and MD-3 rifles are the result of redesigning the FN FAL to use the 5.56x45mm NATO round in place of the FAL's 7.62mm NATO chambering. The MD-2/MD-3 series externally resembles a short-barrelled FAL, but with an M16 magazine. Early MD-1 prototypes retained the FAL-type tilting bolt with a locking shoulder immediately behind the magazine well. This was not found to work well with the 5.56mm round, so subsequent prototypes and the final design incorporated an M16-type 7-lug rotating bolt into the design. The FAL's short-stroke gas piston, which is actuated by gas bled from the barrel via a vent located in the foresight housing, and which impinges upon the separate bolt carrier, is retained. Feeding is from STANAG 4179 M16-compatible magazines. The versions differ in that the MD-2 uses the side-folding buttstock from the FN FAL 'para' variant, while the MD-3 uses the fixed polymer stock of the standard FAL. The MD-2 series contains many FAL-derived parts, some of which remain interchangeable with the original FAL, and others which are modified to suit the new design.
Read more about this topic: IMBEL MD
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“Joe ... you remember I said you wouldn’t be cheated?... Nobody is really. Eventually all things work out. There’s a design in everything.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)